That’s a problem for Don Welch, executive director of the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

While Welch is happy to have the Courtyard by Marriott now open with its 116 rooms alongside the Marriott Pere Marquette, he’d like to know when he can book people into the area’s biggest hotel, Four Points by Sheraton, 500 Hamilton Blvd.

“The ownership is in the process of completing all the renovations and is hopeful to be complete by no later than December 2014. We would then plan for a January re-opening,” said Geoff Lemasters, the hotel’s director of sales and marketing, in an email.

Four Points closed back in October to fix its elevator and undertake a major remodeling effort, taking its 319 rooms off the market, a move that caught the visitors bureau by surprise, heading into the holiday season.

Larry Rose, the hotel’s general manager at the time, estimated it would take about three months to complete the overhaul, anticipating that the hotel might be open for business by mid-February.

But February came and went and so did Rose, along with the management company that owned the property. Stamford, Conn.-based Starwood Hotel chain was out and Alena Hospitality, a firm that manages three hotels in Orlando, Fla., and one in new Jersey, was in. But the hotel remained closed.

In a May interview, Alena’s new general manager, Mohammed Gharavi, said the hotel would reopen in September. Gharavi is still on the job, but only until September, when an interim manager will be announced, noted Lemasters.

All this turmoil and delay places a burden on Welch and his team who need to know how many rooms, particularly Downtown rooms, they have to sell in order to draw groups to town.

“It’s difficult to get larger conventions interested when we can’t get enough hotel rooms within walking distance of the Peoria Civic Center,” said Welch.

Without Four Points, Welch said he’s got 720 rooms Downtown. Business travelers use up some of those rooms. That puts Peoria at a disadvantage in attracting conventions when neighboring cities such as Springfield can provide 850 downtown rooms, while the Quad Cities can offer 1,340 rooms across four downtowns.

Work goes on at Four Points, although at least one observer openly wonders about the pace. “It’s a mystery to me,” said Bud Grieves, owner of the Mark Twain Hotel in Downtown Peoria. “They’ve got an asset sitting there that’s not making a dime. I haven’t seen what I’d call a beehive of activity over there.”

Page 2 of 2 - Steve Tarter is Journal Star business editor. Tarter’s phone number is 686-3260, and his email address is starter@pjstar.com. Follow his blog, Minding Business, on pjstar.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveTarter